(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) – The European stock markets open the last week of August on a positive note, in the wake of the good rise in Tokyo, after the expected speeches by the presidents of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank at the Jackson Hole symposium on Friday 25 August. The FTSE MIB is making good progress in Milan, in line with the rest of the Old Continent. The London Stock Exchange, however, will remain closed. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told investors the central bank would “tread carefully” on any further rate hikes, but also warned that earlier hikes have not entirely slowed inflation and strong, sustained growth. may require restrictive measures. The market expects the Fed to keep rates steady in September, but sees the possibility of another rate hike in November or December. The president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, concluded the day of talks with a speech in which she reaffirmed the will of her institution to continue its restrictive policy. According to Lagarde, the current level of inflation implies “that the ECB fixes interest rates at a sufficiently restrictive level for as long as necessary to bring inflation back to our target of 2% in the medium term”.
In Milan in evidence St, banks in partial recovery
Looking at the stocks, in Piazza Affari, the Ftse Mib Stmicroelectronics and Interpump Group are leading the way. Stellantis is also in evidence: on Friday the workers in the automotive sector who join the Uaw union voted in favor of a strike if an agreement is not reached on the renewal of the contract by 14 September, a widely expected possibility. Partial recovery of some bank stocks, in particular Banco Bpm and Banca Mps.
Euro recovers ground, gas price rises
On the foreign exchange market, the euro recovered ground, climbing above the level of 1.08 dollars (1.0779 at the end of Friday). The price of oil is slightly up, while the price of gas in Amsterdam is up by more than two percent around 35 euros per megawatt hour.
Btp: spread with Bund stable, yield above 4 percent
The spread between BTp and Bund on the Mts secondary market remains stable. The yield differential between the 10-year benchmark BTP (Isin IT0005518128) and the German security of the same duration started trading at 167 basis points, the same level as yesterday’s closing. The yield on the Italian bond on the 10-year maturity opened at 4.22% from 4.23% on the previous day.
Tokyo closes at +1.7% with fewer worries for the Fed
Tokyo Stock Exchange closed higher with the NIKKEI 225 index gaining 32,169.99 points, led by electronics stocks. Japanese equities performed well as worries about further monetary tightening by the US Federal Reserve eased. On the occasion of the annual conference of central bankers in Jackson Hole in the United States, the governor of the Fed, Jerome Powell, in fact repeated that the central bank is ready to further increase interest rates if necessary, emphasizing that the institution will act “with caution”. For his part, the governor of the Bank of Japan, Kazuo Ueda, reconfirmed the maintenance of the ultra-accommodative line of Japanese monetary policy, in favor of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.